Cars Second Birthday Party

On July 12, 2014, we celebrated Jackson's second birthday with a Cars birthday party in my parents' backyard. He is obsessed with cars, trucks and planes, so it seemed fitting. I found invitations at Party City for $3.99 per pack and chose the Saturday after my son's birthday as the date.

I was able to prep for the party a few days before and bought checkered duct tape and covered all of the water bottles in labels like checkered flags. Last year, I covered water bottles in Mickey duct tape for the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse first birthday party and guests really liked it, so I decided to do it again, but the checkered tape was the only Cars-related tape I could find. Again, guests thought that they were fun, but I was unable to redeem the bottles afterward because all of the labels had been removed. Aw well!

Racing Fluids

The day before the party, I started on the cake. Weeks prior, I did some research on Pinterest to see what kind of cake I wanted to make for Jax. I decided on a big #2 with a road on top and toy cars driving on it. I bought a box of black fondant to roll out for the road and white gel icing for the lines on the road. For the cars, I bought Cars Micro Drifters at Toys R Us. I used box cake mix to make one yellow cake layer and one chocolate layer, then I shaped each of them into a 2 and did the same with the fondant. I had extra fondant so I was able to make wheels for the sides of the cake as well. I frosted the cake, stacked them and then added the decorations. I think it came out pretty good, which was reassuring because it could have been a disaster.

Cars #2 Cake

On the day of the party, we started decorating pretty early so we could get everything up. Fortunately, we had a nice day, so we set up the inflatable pool and the sprinkler pad for all of the kids. For the decor, my mother found hanging decorations, which included colorful pennants, a Lightning McQueen and Mater photo drape with props, a cardboard Al Oft (the blimp from Cars) and Lightning McQueen hanging decorations. The deck was decked out! As an added bonus, I drew eyes on a long white strip of paper and placed it in my mother's car's windshield so it looked like a real Cars character was parked in front of the house. Some people thought that it was a sun shield. I just laughed.

Cars Decorations

Since Jackson's seven little friends were coming to the party, I made sure that they had fun goodie bags to take home. The boys got Cars cups, Cars candy, Cars stickers, glow necklaces and a variety of other fun stuff. The girls got Frozen cups, Cars candy, Disney stickers, mini tiaras and a variety of other fun girlie items. After writing each name on the cups, I put each group of goodies in a cellophane bag, added some shredded colored paper and secured them with bendy ties. Each kid seemed happy to get them on their way out.

Fun Goodie Bags

After hours of fun, food, family and friends, we called it a night and cleaned up the backyard. We were able to preserve some of the decorations, but the cake was basically gone and so was most of the food. The party raced in and raced on out, but it was a winner. It was a very Happy Birthday for our little speedster.